Mission critical networks play an increasingly crucial role in the global business environment and are becoming inextricably linked to and dependent on carrier networks for support. In many cases, suppliers of carrier network services do not manage the customer premise equipment (CPE) of their customers' networks and therefore have no control over configuration errors at the customer network that can result in various network failures, including traffic loops. Such configuration errors at the customer network can force traffic into a never ending circular path that spans edge devices of the customer and carrier networks, significantly impacting the overall stability of the carrier network. Because the carrier does not control the CPE, the carrier is not able to resolve loops at the source. Resolving loops that originate from a customer network, typically requires manual troubleshooting by the carrier. Manual troubleshooting is expensive and time consuming.
In view of the relationship between carrier and customer networks, what is needed is a technique for detecting and managing loops between network devices, particularly edge devices of customer and carrier networks.